The following cliffs will be closed to climbing beginning March 1, 2012: Angels Landing, Cable Mountain, The Great White Throne (beyond single- and double-pitched climbs), Isaac (in Court of the Patriarchs), The Sentinel, Mountain of the Sun, North Twin Brother, Tunnel Wall, The East Temple, Mount Spry, The Streaked Wall, Mount Kinesava, and the Middle Fork of Taylor Creek. All other cliffs will remain open to climbing.

the twin crack system at the start of P1 is gone. sad to see it go. it left a big block wedged in the crack. it seems solid for now, however be aware if it slid onto you, you would get plowed. also i found that R1 PM me I PM'd you

Amazing route! I agree with Mike's pitch break down: 10+, 10+, 11- and 11. Agreed, bolt isn't necessary at the top of the 4th pitch. I also concur that SuperTopo rack list is a bit overkill but the post here is a little sparse for the average 5.11 climber. I would recommend:

2 green aliens 4 yellow aliens/TCUs 6 red aliens/0.5 camalots Doubles from .75 to #2, and nothing bigger. Set of nuts optional (not a lot of constrictions in this splitter!)

Linking pitch 2 & 3 or 3 & 4 is definitely possible if you are ok running it out a bit or if you bring extra mid size cams as listed above.

Better than Fine Jade in Castle Valley. Not to split hairs, but my pitch breakdown would be more like: P1: 10+/11- stiff out of the gate, jamming the hollow flake. Watch for drag. 100' P2: 10- elegant traversing face moves, and secure crack climbing with great feet. 70' P3: 11 sustained bits of left-leaning fingers, some sharp thin hand jams and smears for you left foot. 75' P4: 11- excellent with good rests and cool finishing sequence. I also thought this pitch was easier than the 3rd and I didn't mind clipping the bolt. What's a bristler? 65'

Approach beta: The directions to this climb here or on the main confluence page seem nonexistent. From the turnout at the last switchback before the tunnel, hike west on a good trail for 10 or so minutes until the wall turns from north to west facing. Hike another 10 minutes along the wall's base past the gorgeous thin splitter "Crimson King", trending down till you can see the dark face with the splitter with a roof above it . The pictures posted here are very helpful. You can see the visitor center from the base of the climb. If the wall turns back north facing you've gone too far.

Weird how ratings/gear recommendation are all over the board on this one. The poster suggest 2 .5 camalots or equivalent, while another commenter suggests 6? After doing the route, let me say this: if you only bring 2, you'll be desperate, if you bring 6, you'll likely have 3 still sitting on your harness at the next belay. As for rating, Crimson King is way harder than any of the 5.11 pitches on SM, so I give this climb 11a. Hanging stances on p3 and p4, easy rap with one rope.

Agree with Spencer about approach (though took us more time) and rack. Bring a pile of BD .4 to .5 or orange Metolii. Lots of decent stances for back cleaning if needed--that's what I did. Placed one medium nut total.

Looked all over the top of p4 for something that looked like a "bristler" but could not find it. Maybe it was trundled, or broke off.

Spencer's beta is right on, as always. The goods are .4-.5 BD or yellow/orange metolii (didn't know that was plural; thanks Phil). So, bring lots of those sizes, and a single set of other cams (except 2 #1 camalots for the start). Leave the nuts at home.

Each pitch is VERY short. Pitch 1 and 2 can be combined if you're creative at managing drag, otherwise do them as two pitches. Pitches two and three can be combined, but what's the point since the top of pitch 3 is a full-on hanging belay? I recommend doing the first two pitches as advertised, and combining 3 and 4. There is really no need not to do so, unless you don't have the right gear. So, brings heaps of .4-.5 camalots and you can cruise P3-P4 as one pitch easily. Easy rap with a single 60. Enjoy this beauty!

Me and my friend did the route on Nov 29th. It was warm that weekend, (highs at 60?). It gets pretty good sun in the afternoon, but I imagine from the angle of the rock that the sun will hit it later and later as we get further into winter. We are the slowest climbers there are, and it took us 3-4 hours to complete (including rappelling). So that should still allow for at least a slightly shaded start with a sunny finish. It seemed like this climb gets sun almost an hour+ after the Crimson King does.

Also, on rappelling, with our 70m rope, we were able to rap in three raps: top of p4 to top of p3, top of p3 to the top of p1 (with a few feet to spare), and p1 to the ground.

The beginning of the first pitch was not obvious to me. I think I was too far right? At any rate it was chossy and dirty. Is there scrambling required to get to the thin hands crack and beginning of the route?

Last I was there, there was a fairly beat in path that traverses left and then back right to the top of a pedestal-like feature. You then go up a short wideish right facing corner that takes you to a ledge and to the left slanting splitter thin hands crack (Two discontinuous cracks in one of the pictures above). The thin hands crack is relatively short and tops out to another ledge with a large bush on it, traverse right to the left facing corner with a buldge at the top. First pitch anchors are on top of that.

This is a superb route, as good as if not better than the The Headache, with a similar length. Catches sun by around 1:30 in late March. I found p3 to be the crux, sustained fingers with few good rests. Linking p3/4 would make for one hell of a pitch, amongst the best in the entire Park.

The block at the start of pitch 1 that created the two thin cracks has broken out almost completly. Now a perfect #1 bd crack in the back of the slot starts the rout. There is still a chock stone at the top of this section that is large and not very stable so be careful pulling around it. The crack is still very sandy and needs to be cleaned up.

I'm not sure if it has increased the difficulty of the pitch since I never climbed it prior to the block falling, but we were able to free it without incident.

The block on the first pitch fell out. It is a thin hands splitter in the back of a flare now. Goes at 5.10. Not trying to be a sandbagged, but, this climb is not 5.11. 10+ at the most. If Crimson King and Inner Chi are both 5.11, this climb is only 5.10. Super fun and highly recommended!

However many finger sized cams you bring for the 3rd pitch make sure to have at least 1 or 2 left for the final vertical splitter to the chains. Part of the block at the start of the route still remains. It seemed a little sketchy.